


Somewhere ages and ages hence

by Heavy Henry (pelicanna)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Art School, Alternate Universe - Artists, Alternate Universe - Bakery, Anxiety, Bakery and Coffee Shop, Bittersweet Ending, Cancer, Depression, Domestic, M/M, Major Illness, Not A Happy Ending, Please Don't Hate Me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-01-04 10:40:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18342014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pelicanna/pseuds/Heavy%20Henry
Summary: A slight change to Viktor's regular routine puts him back in touch with Yuuri, the mysterious stranger who had stolen his heart at a gallery reception half a year before, then disappeared from his life as abruptly as he'd arrived. As he and Yuuri start over, will Viktor ever really understand what happened between them that night?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm writing a coffee shop AU (I guess it's technically a bakery, shh). Who even am I? This was actually an idea that I was playing with for the upcoming Angst Bang. I'm going a different direction for that event, but I couldn't resist developing this one (despite my multiple WIPs [which are Not Abandoned] and art for bangs). I'll need to add some more tags as it develops, and will also be adding more specific notes/warnings as they become relevant. That said, I decided against this for the bang because it is possibly too heavy. For an angst bang. So, uh, enjoy?

Viktor thinks a lot about regrets, about decisions. His life is full of so many things that he would change if he could: small things, large things. Everything from the royal blue velvet blazer he gave to Goodwill in 2004 to his decision not to go home for Christmas break in 2014 (his father had a fatal stroke in March of 2015). He thinks about the million points in time that he made a decision whose importance he will never understand because he doesn’t know what the alternative outcome would have been. He thinks about Frost, about the two roads diverging and wonders if he should have taken the other. 

Today, he makes a decision, just a small one. He decides that he will finally step into the Haus of Pain, that new bakery that he bikes past on his way to UBC. They have a display in the window, sourdoughs slashed into grinning faces, sculpted into wheat stalks, dark ryes, crusty baguettes standing proudly in baskets, and most importantly, a chalk sign advertising a single origin French Roast. 

The interior is just as charming as the display, warm and homey like no home he’s ever lived in. It should almost feel artificial, but the knick knacks on the walls don’t have the generically vintage™ vibe of a Cracker Barrel, instead it feels intimate with its shelves of board games and broken type-drawers full of Happy Meal toys. He orders a coffee and a bialy from the Human Ray of Sunshine at the register, and is pleasantly surprised that he actually has to specify “to-go,” as if the default assumption is that he would want to stay and drink out of one of the mismatched ceramic mugs, maybe sit down at the table with all of the She-ra coloring sheets decoupaged beneath a layer of yellowing polyurethane and deal himself a hand of solitaire. He does want that. He wants to page through the shelf of Star Trek paperbacks and the set of ChildCrafts that appear to be from 1975 at the latest. Maybe he’ll take up macrame. 

Instead, he chats amiably as Smiles concocts his pour-over and bags up his treat. He catches a puff of steam as the bialy is lifted from the sheet pan. If Viktor had known they were fresh, he’d have ordered two. He thanks the cashier and promises that he’ll be back, but as he moves to leave, he notices a sign: “Seasonal Special: Apricot Couronne, amaze your friends, clear your skin, water your crops, and order one today!” Viktor loves apricots, loves all kinds of stone fruit, really. So he says, “Ooh. What’s that?” 

Human Ray of Sunshine smiles even wider and shouts to the back. “Hey! Someone’s asking about the King JJ!” 

“Tell them to hang on! I have one coming out in - uh - two minutes.” 

“The King JJ?” 

“You know that law firm? LeRoy and Associates? They’ve got that ad?” 

Viktor rolls his eyes. Everyone knows that ad. “You can sue the world (JJ), Just Call Me! One Eight-hundred, three So Sue Me! Accident, class action, injury!” he sings. 

“Yeah, that one.” Smiles waves a hand dismissively. “Anyway, the dude’s really into being from Quebec. So he asked us to come up with our version of a king cake. He orders a bunch every year, so we make a few extra. You’re lucky, tomorrow’s the last day you’ll be able to get one.” 

“Ours are more New Orleans style than Quebec style...oof...more brioche than pâte feuilletée, I mean, but JJ doesn’t seem to mind,” a slight dark-haired man appears from behind the cooling racks, carrying a full sheet tray with a mountain of carbs that threatens to dwarf him. Steam has fogged his glasses, but Viktor can still see the way his eyes widen as he goes absolutely still. Smiles notices and glances sharply at Viktor while he grabs a pair of oven mitts from a hook. Without taking his accusing eyes off Viktor, he takes the tray from the other man’s hands and slides it onto a cooling rack. 

  
  


It had been the opening reception for the Vancouver Works on Paper Biennial. One of Viktor’s pieces had won, of course. It didn’t deserve it, he thought, walking through the gallery, looking closely at all of the emerging artists whose work may have been less polished, less slick and developed, and infinitely more interesting and vital than yet another Viktor Nikiforov nude. 

He was particularly fond of the second place winner; a series of small multicolor woodcuts, carved in harsh strokes, but each angry layer - and they weren’t even carved reductively, wtf? How much work did that take? - piled atop the previous one to form portraits of surprising beauty. He recognized several of the subjects as students in the department. The name, Yuri Plisetsky, was familiar, too. He had certainly passed through Viktor’s figure drawing course at some point, but Viktor couldn’t picture him. 

He looked up, then, scanning the room, and hads to do a double take. There, looking at Viktor’s drawing (huge and boring - a life-sized male nude sprawled languidly across meticulously rendered drapery that had been more interesting to draw than the model had been) was the subject of one of the tiny portraits. He looked back, to make sure he was right, but it was a testament to the artist’s skill that he didn’t even have to wonder. Viktor didn’t know him. He wasn't a student, not someone who usually came to openings. Even in a city as large as Vancouver, one could get to know the people within the same professional circles, and this guy wasn't one of them. 

Viktor made his way across the room, shaking a few hands, and accepting some very hollow expressions of congratulations from other artists, and a friendly hug from his regular model, Christophe, which seemed excessive, especially given that they shared an apartment and had just seen each other an hour ago. He eventually came to stand next to the stranger, feigning interest in his own drawing. 

“Overrated,” Viktor sniffed affectedly. 

The stranger looked up, startled, and stiffly said, “I like it,” before turning and walking away. 

As much as Viktor enjoyed that view, he didn’t want to let this charming and apparently sincere fellow think he was nothing more than an incorrigible art snob and general wet blanket (even if he was). So, he did what any sensible person would do and followed him to the refreshment table where he was looking at the bottles and boxes of wine with an air of deep thoughtfulness. 

“No matter how hard you stare, none of them will turn into the Chateau Mouton Rothschild, I’m afraid.” 

“Is that a wine?” The stranger pushed up the blue frame of his glasses and straightened his toque. 

“I’m sorry about before. I suppose I’m not so good at starting conversations. Here,” Viktor lifted a bottle of a passable red and filled the stranger’s plastic cup. “I’m Viktor Nikiforov, and I’m pleased that you like my drawing.” 

The stranger froze for a second, then snorted. “Oh, wow. And I thought _I_ was awkward.” He took a swallow of his wine, and set down the cup in favor of extending a hand. “Yuuri.” 

And that was how it started. For the rest of the night, Viktor didn’t do any of the marketing and networking that he was supposed to be doing. He just talked and flirted and looked at art. Really looked at art, in a way he hadn’t in years. He walked the gallery with Yuuri, who obviously knew a little bit about art, but didn’t have any preconceived notions about what he should like trampling all over what he _did_ like. A landscape that he should have dismissed as trite and formulaic became a playground for his imagination, populated with the magical creatures he had fruitlessly sought in parks he played in as a child. A shadow-box that his academic brain told him was a hopeless Joseph Cornell rip-off became an enchanting miniature world, a veritable cabinet of wonders. 

Even the DJ filling the space with electro-swing mixes was suddenly fun and not an embarrassing anachronism. Especially when he learned that Yuuri liked to dance. No one ever danced at these things, no matter how hard the planners tried to encourage it. Yuuri had shoved shoved his hat in the pocket of his jacket and tugged Viktor to an open spot on the floor. That night, though, Viktor was not the only one swept away by Yuuri’s magic and the floor filled with artists and patrons and people who had just come for free snacks and wine, all trying to figure out how to Lindy Hop like it was 1997 all over again. 

They had danced until the DJ packed up and Yuuri had excused himself to the restroom. Viktor occupied himself with some carrot sticks and hummus while he waited. Christophe, ever a stranger to the concept of personal space, sidled up beside him. 

“I see you’ve made a friend? I thought you hated these things.” 

“I do. Most of the time. Do you know Yuuri?” 

“Mm, not well, I’m afraid. We cross paths at Barre Code every now and then. I just know that he’s a _very_ flexible cutie. He’s quiet, standoffish, you could say. Most of the time, at least.” 

Viktor had stopped listening when Yuuri emerged from the hallway with a shy smile when he caught Viktor’s eye. It faded quickly when he was intercepted by a lanky blond man in a Mastodon t-shirt and yellow skinny jeans. Viktor may only have known Yuuri for a handful of hours, but he did know the look of someone who was pissed off. 

“Excuse me -” 

“Go ahead, rescue your gentleman fair,” Christophe took VIktor’s paper plate of hummus and proceeded to munch on his carrots. 

By the time Viktor made it to Yuuri, whatever confrontation was happening had largely wound down. He caught the end of it, though. 

“-ried about you. This isn’t like you, and you know it.” The blond was practically spitting. 

“I know, I just needed - Oh. Um. Viktor. Hey.” Yuuri tucked his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. 

“Everything good?” Viktor asked, trying to figure out why this angry kid looked so familiar. Then it came to him: Intermediate Figure Drawing, couple of semesters ago. A student, talented but obnoxious. Yuri Plisetsky, of the gorgeous and illogically difficult to produce woodcuts. 

Yuri glanced at him and dismissed him all in a word, “Whatever. We’re all adults, so I guess you get to make whatever stupid decisions you want, right?” 

“Yurio -” 

“It’s cool. Otabek already said he’ll give me a lift home.” 

“Okay, be safe?” 

“Yeah, sure, you too.” He turned his bright green eyes on Viktor, and sneered, “Hey old man.” 

“Yes?” 

“You know I should’ve won, right?” 

“I do.” 

“Tch. I still think you’re an idiot who sure just retire, already.” 

“Yurio,” scolds Yuuri. 

“Fuck all yall. I’m going home.” And with that, their one-man tornado had left the building. 

“Well, that was - huh,” was all Viktor could say. 

“Dramatic?” offered Yuuri. “That’s Yurio,” and Viktor wondered if he should have been worried about how fond Yuuri sounded. 

“Friend of yours?” 

“Co-worker.” Viktor wanted to ask more questions, but then Yuuri had turned to him, standing closer than Viktor had realized, and said, “Well, it looks like I’m free for the rest of the night. Got any ideas?” 

As it turned out, Viktor had several, and they managed to scratch quite a few things off of his to-do list before they fell asleep in a tangled mess of sweat and sex and sticky. 

Viktor wasn’t, still isn’t, sure when he had realized that something was wrong. He probably should have known sooner, but it’s not as if he had a basis for comparison. Everything Yuuri was new to him, so Yuuri’s wildness, his intensity in bed, was a pleasant surprise. Less pleasant was the moment that Viktor had to tell Yuuri to stop, wait, condoms were a thing. Sometimes Yuuri had seemed distracted, distant, but then he had gathered himself and come right back with his arms around Viktor, his mouth on Viktor, and Viktor had forgotten about those small moments just past. He had wanted to ask if everything was okay, but he wasn’t sure that he and Yuuri had that kind of relationship. 

Something roused him just before dawn and he had looked up to see Yuuri sitting on the edge of the bed, staring in the general direction of the window. He wasn’t looking out of it, just staring. When he noticed Viktor watching him, he had made a face that was clearly meant to be a smile but it had gotten lost on its way to his face. “I should go.” 

Viktor had groaned and grinned. “Are you sure? I could make us breakfast. Some french toast? Mimosas?” He snuggled his face against Yuuri’s thigh. 

“I’d better not.” 

“Well, can I get your number, at least? I want to see you again. Last night was really -” he’d cast about for a word, but nothing did it justice, “it was really nice.” 

“Yeah. Nice. Sure.” 

“Okay, maybe not ‘nice.’ More like the best night I’ve had in, oh, I don’t know, years?” 

“That must be nice for you.” 

That made Viktor sit up. “What is that supposed to mean?” 

“That this was a mistake. I’m sorry.” 

“So that’s it, then?” 

“It’s not you -” 

“I’ve heard that one before.” Viktor’s usually endless reserves of pettiness had apparently deserted him, and all he could manage to be was genuinely hurt. 

Yuuri stood and dressed in silence while Viktor took his own turn staring at the window. “I really am sorry, Viktor. You seem like a good guy.” Viktor didn’t want to look at him but he turned anyway and regretted it as soon as he did. “You take care, okay?” In the second before he left, Yuuri had looked every bit as raw as Viktor felt. 

Viktor wasn’t sure how long he stared, but he eventually fell asleep again, only to wake with a crick in his neck and a hollow feeling beneath his ribs. He stumbled out of his room in sleep pants and a robe. Chris was sitting on the couch, sipping from a mug of coffee. When he saw Viktor, he set it down and started a slow clap. 

Ah, that’s right. Viktor wasn’t usually terribly vocal, but Yuuri had been...persuasive. Viktor avoided eye contact and filled his own mug before sitting beside Chris on the couch. 

“So, do we have company for breakfast, or is you’re new friend more of a ‘fuck and run’ sort, because from the sounds of it, you two had quite the marathon.” 

“He’s gone.” Viktor replied dully. 

“Damn son,” Chris had responded, poking at one of what was probably a plethora of bite marks and hickeys. 

“Shut up,” he batted Chris’s hand away and tugged up the shawl collar of his robe to hide the way his jaw had quivered. 

“Oh Honey. Let’s get you a mimosa or seven.” 

  
  


And that had been that. He’d tried to look, had done a little light social network snooping, but without knowing anything substantial about Yuuri, including a last name, he didn’t make it anywhere. To be honest, he didn’t try very hard. As much as it hurt, Yuuri had clearly not wanted to see Viktor again, and even his few attempts at research left him feeling very invasive. 

He hadn’t seen Yuuri or heard anything at all about him until now, standing behind the literal human ray of sunshine who was attempting to bridge the increasingly evident awkwardness with a nonstop patter of charming stories and customer gossip. 

“So that’s the story about the time JJ Leroy Esq was the guest of honor at my nephew’s birthday party and since that day we’ve made the King JJ Cake every year from Twelfth Night until Mardi Gras as a gesture of gratitude and fealty to our liege and chief financial backer.” 

Yuuri has thawed from absolute inactivity to nervous fidgeting. “Hey, Phichit?” 

“Yeah?” 

“I’m gonna take a fifteen.” He meets Viktor’s eyes. “Take a walk with me?” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone talks.
> 
> See end notes for some minor content notes.

“Hey, Phichit?” 

“Yeah?” 

“I’m gonna take a fifteen.” Yuuri braved a look at Viktor. His eyes were still the improbable blue of Windex and they still made Yuuri think of tourist posters of tropical islands, even as the surprise that filled them froze over into a mask of indifference. “Talk a walk with me?” Yuuri pleads anyway. 

Part of him hopes that Viktor is still angry, because the easiest thing for both of them would be to pretend that this chance encounter hadn’t happened. Viktor could go to a different bakery and Yuuri could go back to pretending that night didn’t happen to everyone except for his therapist and the day counter on his sobriety tracker. The best thing that could possibly happen, «dans le meilleur des mondes possibles», would be for Viktor to blow him off, or maybe he could publically and dramatically denounce him as a scoundrel, a cad, a libertine, lecherous lothario, or something before sweeping dramatically out of the bakery in his dapper grey trenchcoat. At least that would make a good story. 

Instead he just nods stiffly and looks toward the door. Yuuri guesses he should lead the way since this was his own dumb idea. As soon as he reaches the sidewalk, he remembers that it _is_ still March in Vancouver and that while the bakery stays a balmy 26 degrees, he really should have grabbed his sweatshirt. Oh well, that’s just another incentive to make this quick. 

He marches a couple of steps from the door and stops in front of a bike rack. He takes a second to gather his courage, such as it is, then turns to face Viktor. “About before, at the reception thing, I really did - I wasn’t... it wasn’t…” Ugh. He’s fidgeting, he can feel himself doing it, plucking at his t-shirt, straightening his sleeve, shuffling his feet. _Look at you. He thinks you’re weak. Idiot,_ He really should have planned this better. He’s shivering hard enough that it’s making him stutter and his throat is doing that awful thing that makes his voice come out all squeaky and like he’s about to cry. 

Viktor stops him. “Look, Yuuri,” he glances at his watch, “I actually really don’t have time for this, and you obviously don’t want to do this.” 

“No, I’m fine. I just wanted to -” 

“I would like to talk to you, but I don’t want to feel rushed, and I don’t want you to freeze to death.” He smiles, and while everything is still tense and weird and wrong, it’s nice to see. Weirdly, Viktor doesn’t seem angry. He seems like he did before, except maybe a little worried or sad. He’s still nice, he still looks like a model and he still apparently wants to talk to Yuuri. “Can we get a drink, maybe?” 

“Of course.” _Suggest coffee, you idiot_ “Yeah, I can do that.” 

“Tonight? How about, hm - do you know Uva?” 

“By the gallery, right? Yeah.” _This is a terrible idea_ , and he doesn’t understand how Viktor is being so matter of fact about this and because he doesn’t understand he has no idea how to react and now he’s been swept up in this thing, and he doesn’t know what he wants to do. “Eight-thirty?” _What are you thinking? You go to work at four._

“Sounds good. Um, could you hold this?” Viktor hands him the bag and his coffee and starts fiddling with the lock of the bright yellow bicycle. “Thanks.” He plucks his pastry back out of Yuuri’s hands tucks it into a saddle bag before nestling the paper cup into the holder on the seat tube. “Okay, tonight, then.” 

“Viktor, wait. I really am sorry.” 

“Mm. Me too. We’ll talk later, okay?” 

Yuuri just nods, his hand twitching beside him like he wants to wave but can’t remember how. 

By the time he gets back to the bakery, he is well and truly chilled in addition to dreading the day ahead. Phichit, on the other hand, looks away from their phone the second Yuuri walks in, expression as bright and friendly as ever. 

“So?” They prompt, and Yuuri is not in the mood. 

“What?” 

“Are you going to tell me what in the fuzzy heck that was?” 

“Probably not.” 

“Yuuri, you’re doing the thing.” 

“Oh, would you look at that? The fougasse dough needs to be folded.” He makes a show of looking at his wrist. He doesn’t wear a watch. 

“Fine, I’ll leave you alone. Just don’t forget you can talk to me, yeah?” 

“Yeah. thanks.” 

His unplanned break put him only a little behind schedule for the day. By the time Yurio bursts through the back door, swearing about something in a tone that would be alarming if Yuuri didn’t hear it every day, Yuuri’s almost got the kneading table ready to go. 

He hopes Yurio doesn’t notice anything, which means that he immediately does. 

“Whoa. What’s your deal today, loser?” He pauses, rubber band in his mouth, frozen in the act of tying back his hair. “You look like somebody died.” 

“Yes, thank you for that, Yurio. I got interrupted.” 

“No shit.” Yurio ties on his apron and starts washing his hands. Yuuri doesn’t even have to tell him what to do, Yurio’s already right there with the dough scrapers and the scale and the bannetons. “What kind of interruption?” 

“Yuuri has an admirer!” 

“Shut up, Phichit,” Yuuri yells back. 

He hears a hiss of steam from the espresso machine and an indignant squeak. “What? Who?” Oh great, Minami’s here. 

Yurio rolls his eyes. “What are they talking about, katsudon?” 

Yuuri pretends that taking the temperature of the mass of caraway rye in front of him requires all of his attention as he jots numbers and notes on his clipboard. “Ready?” Yurio nods and grabs the other handle of the tote and helps him tip out the dough onto the board. 

“Oh, nothing!” Phichit sing-sings from the front counter. “Just a silver fox buyin’ a bialy and looking totally fucking smitten with everyone’s favorite baker boy.” 

Yurio’s eyes narrow. “Silver?” 

Yuuri ignores him and weighs a wad of dough. 

“It’s him, isn’t it? Are you seeing him again?” 

“I wasn’t ‘seeing’ him before.” He tosses the dough to Yurio who starts shaping it automatically. 

“Fucking him, whatever.” 

Yuuri grinds his teeth. “It’s not really your business, Yurio.” 

“Like hell it’s not! Last time -” 

“Last time wasn’t anyone else’s fault.” 

Last time was six months ago. Last time was a mistake. Last time was the first of a whole bunch of mistakes, actually, and Viktor? Well, Viktor brought up a bunch of really complicated feelings for Yuuri because Yuuri liked Viktor, _really_ liked Viktor. Viktor also happens to be a living souvenir from Yuuri’s vacation to the worst day of his adult life. 

They work in silence for a while. Either they got busy up front or Yuuri’s mood is infecting everybody. _Nice job, asshole. Why don’t you ruin everyone else’s day. Want to destroy you business while you’re at it. You can’t even -_

“Hey, Phichit? Can y’all put on some music?” 

“Sure thing Boss Man. Minami?” 

“You got it Boss Person. I just made a new playlist last night. I call it Flour Power Metal!” Yuuri can hear him clambering around on the desk as he plugs his phone into the speaker system. 

Yurio rolls his eyes, but he’s smirking a little. By the time they get the lids on the proofing boxes full of rye and start re-setting the table for the fougasse, Yuuri feels like maybe the day won’t be a complete waste. He manages to get through the rest of it with minimal wallowing, and by two, when he leaves Yurio to tend to the oven, feed the preferments, and all of the rest of the thankless tasks that he seems happy (in his own grumpy way) to do, Yuuri has almost managed to forget his evening engagement. 

He’s about ready to drop when he hits the apartment door. He and Phichit had totally lucked out on the place. Their lease includes the loft apartment above the bakery. The pizza restaurant that used to have the space had used it as an event space and, maybe someday, if things kept going well, they would both be able to move out and use this for something else. If he had time, Yuuri wanted to start offering classes, maybe host guest bakers, do pop-up dinners. He had so many ideas. 

For now, though, Yuuri and Phichit had sunk every bit of savings they had into the business and while, after three years in business they were able to breath a little easier, any bit of money that wasn’t sucked into the bottomless pit of rent got thrown at the limitless mountain of debt. So, for now, the large space has been temporarily subdivided into two private spaces, the restrooms have been left relatively unmolested, and the service bar has been outfitted with a rice-cooker, electric kettle, and an instant pot. A little bit of ingenuity turned the mop sink in the utility closet into a perfectly serviceable shower. 

Yuuri thinks about making use of it now, but he wants to get a run in before he stops moving. He’s tired today, and if he stops, it’ll be several hours before he moves again. His bed beckons, but he shoves his feet into his sneakers, pulls a pair of shorts from the pile and drags on an old marathon t-shirt. 

He heads north toward Kitsilano and takes the bike path past the fancy houses and the yacht club and along the beach. It’s a mild day, for March, but the wind still has a bite to it. It’s clear enough to see the skyscrapers across the water and the mountains rising beyond them. He thinks he can pick out Whistler, but he isn’t sure. The path is narrow and during the summer it will be crowded, vegetation encroaching on both sides. He likes running here in July when he can pick handfuls of blackberries as he runs. Invasive species still taste sweet and everything just wants to live. 

Sometimes, when he has more energy, he goes all the way across the bridge and out to Stanley Park. Today, though, he stays on his side of the Bay, turning back at the museum. He feels better, the world feels better. Something about running always does that for him; shuts up the voice in the back of his head that’s always criticism, always worrying, always telling him that he’s _doing it wrong._ His head is quiet for now it’s time to go back, back to delicious leftovers, a shower, and a nap. 

When he wakes up, he can hear Phichit moving around the apartment. He groans when he remembers what he signed himself up for tonight. He shoves his pillow back over his face and makes a terrible sound. 

“You okay in there?” 

“Argh.” Yuuri lifts his face. “Phichit, I know we don’t have walls, but you’re supposed to pretend that you can’t hear everything I do.” 

“Oh, I thought that rule was just for farting and crying. I made yerba mate. You want?” 

“Yes, please.” Yuuri has almost run out of vices, and if anyone wants to take his caffeine from him they will have to pry it from his cold dead hands. He shivers as he stands. He forgot to put his sleeve back on before he crashed, so he pulls it on now. 

He finds Phichit on the couch, Bob’s Burgers on the TV. The coffee table is scattered with the peels of about six of those tiny oranges, a melting pint of Ben & Jerry’s Non-dairy Peanut Butter Half-baked. Phichit is slumped on the couch with a hot water bottle on their belly, and at least three sunflower seed munching hamsters crawling on their chest. Actually, wait, four. One just crawled out of the pocket of their hoodie. 

“Shark week,” is all the explanation he gets. 

Yuuri can’t say he really understands, but he nods sympathetically. “Balanced dinner?” 

“At least I won’t get scurvy.” They scooch back, cradling their critters, and make room for Yuuri. “Hey, so, you okay? You seemed kinda rattled earlier.” 

“Yeah, I’m good.” 

“No, it’s just, I need to say I’m sorry. I thought he seemed nice and maybe kinda your type, but now I feel bad cuz you obviously know him and weren’t stoked to see him, so now i’m worried that i made an awkward situation worse.” 

“Nah, if anything, you probably helped. Wait - My Type? You have theories about my type?” 

“I am a keen observer of human nature, my dear. Just cuz I don’t have a type doesn’t mean I haven’t noticed how much you like a tall drink of vodka.” 

Yuuri twitches. 

Phichit backtracks frantically. “Shit. that’s not what I meant. Tall, pale, lean, that’s what I meant!” 

“Well, you aren’t wrong. We, uh, hooked up.” 

“Go Yuuri.” 

“Woohoo. Uh, yeah, you remember when I went to Yurio’s show last spring?” 

“Oh. _Oh_. He’s that guy?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Fuck.” 

“Yeah.” 

“That’s a shame. He seems nice. And like he would maybe have bought a lot of coffee from us.” Phichit sighs and somehow manages to sip their tea while mostly reclined. 

“I’m meeting him tonight.” 

That does it. Phichit chokes on their tea and sits up, sputtering, and scattering several stunned rodents. “What?!” 

Yuuri picks up a hamster and sets it safely on the table. “Yeah. It’s probably a bad idea.” 

Phichit looks thoughtful as they dab at the front of their sweatshirt. “Has it still been bothering you?” 

“Yeah,” Yuuri can never manage to lie to Phichit for long. 

“Then maybe it’ll help. Closure, or something. Maybe you can tell him what was going on, and -” 

“I’m not doing that. But I guess I can apologize, for real.” 

“Do you need a ride?” Yuuri looks at his roomate. It’s obvious that they had no plans to move from the couch for the rest of the night, except maybe to order delivery. 

“Nah, I’m good.” 

“No, wait, this is perfect. You want an excuse to keep it short, right?” 

Actually, that would be nice, come to think of it. 

“And I want there to be curry in the house when I inevitably get so fucking high I forget my name.” 

Yuuri is unsurprised to learn about that part of the agenda. 

“So, I’ll drop you off, then i’ll go to - wait, where are we going?” 

“Uh, kinda by H-Mart.” 

“Salam Bombay, then - and then pick you up with a car full of food.” 

Yuuri’s stomach rumbles. It’s been a really long time since he’s been out to eat, and their lamb Neelgiri is one of his favorites… “Okay.” 

Phichit looks thrilled and Yuuri wonders what he did to deserve a friend like Phichit, at least until they offer to help him choose an outfit. 

  
  


“Okay...okay.” 

“You good?” Phichit looks concerned. “You know you don’t have to do this, right?” 

“I don’t have his number.” The van is blocking the road. People - probably Americans - are starting to honk. “I don’t want to create any more loose ends.” 

“If you’re sure…” They’re still doubtful, Yuuri can tell. “Okay, call me as soon as you need me. I’ll be, like, the Flash or something.” _Like the Flash in a powder blue Dodge Caravan._

“You got it,” Yuuri brandishes some reassuring finger guns and watches Phichit drive off. 

Inside, he squares his shoulders and approaches the bar. He has beaten Viktor, it appears, which is good, because he would prefer not to have an audience while he orders. 

He hasn’t felt this self-conscious in a bar in a long time. He used to be sure that the bartenders were judging his drink selection. He had since learned that most are actually thrilled with non-drinking customers. Yuuri always makes a point of tipping as much (or more) than he would if he were drinking, and the bartenders appreciate the easy orders and the knowledge that there is at least one customer they don’t have to keep an eye on. Yuuri go-to is club soda with a splash of cranberry but tonight he goes for a ginger ale. Maybe it will settle his stomach. 

Tonight’s bartender doesn’t even bat an eye, just asks if he wants a lime or anything. Yuuri requests a cherry. Maybe Viktor will think it’s a Manhattan. Why does he care? He’s not self-conscious about his sobriety, not anymore. 

Next decision: should he sit at the bar or a table. He looks at the bartender in front of all of those beautiful, glimmering bottles, amber and gold and full of liquid temptation, and heads for a table. He doesn’t have long to wait. 

Viktor looks, well, eager maybe, and it simultaneously melts something in Yuuri while also opening a pit of worry in his chest. Like a landslide in the muddy spring. Great - now he’ll have that song in his head. He raises a hand to Yuuri who nods, watching surreptitiously as Viktor tilts his chin to peruse the menu. He laughs at something with the bartender, the lights catching in his eyes and making them spark blue. Yuuri can’t believe he forgot how mesmerizing the man was. He eventually approaches the table with an angular glass of something clear with a curl of lemon perched on the rim. When he takes a speculative sip, Yuuri’s mouth goes dry. 

“Ah! That’s nice!” Viktor smiles. “It’s so hard to decide, here - I went with the Fashion Reborn - what did you get?” 

“Um, ginger ale.” 

“Ooh, like a Dark and Stormy?” 

Yuuri winces, “No, just, uh, ginger ale. I actually don’t drink.” The _anymore_ hangs in the air. 

“Oh.” Viktor opens his mouth a couple of times, like he wants to apologize or ask a question. Instead he just takes a sip of his drink, visibly uncomfortable, now. That wasn’t what Yuuri wanted. 

“Is it good?” 

Viktor looks startled, like he’s not sure whether or how he’s supposed to answer. “Um, very,” he pauses, and finally settles on “Are you - does it bother you to be in a bar?” 

“Yeah, I mean no, it’s fine,” _mostly._ “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make it weird.” 

“I think it was going to be weird no matter what. All day I’ve been thinking that maybe this isn’t a good idea.” 

“Me too.” 

“I mean, you were pretty firm about not wanting anything other than _that_ , so I probably shouldn’t have asked. I hope you didn’t feel pressured.” 

Yuuri twists his glass on the coaster and runs a finger through the condensation. “I didn’t. I’ll be honest, I didn’t plan to see you again, but I’m kind of glad, I guess.” Viktor quirks an eyebrow and it’s so goddamn charming that Yuuri loses his train of thought. “Really?” 

“Viktor, I -” _Just say it_ , “I really am sorry. I just, I wish that night hadn’t happened.” 

Viktor’s face falls for a second but there’s a polite smile in place before Yuuri really registers it. “Oh. I had quite a nice time,” he says stiffly. 

“I didn’t mean it quite like that,” Yuuri sighs. “I’m not good at, you know, saying things, so just give me a moment, okay?” 

Viktor nods. 

“Before, when I said I don’t drink, that’s true. I stopped drinking nearly five years ago. Except for a week last fall.” He makes himself meet Viktor’s eyes, refuses to flinch from their bright blue. 

“Were you -” Viktor trails off but Yuuri knows what he would be asking. 

“I wasn’t drunk,” not then, anyway. Later that day was another story. “But, me, I shouldn’t be drinking at all. I wasn’t making good decisions that day.” 

“And I was a bad decision?” 

“That day you were.” It sounds awful, but it’s honest. “I”d had some, uh, bad news that day, and I was handling things poorly.” 

“Is everything okay, now?” 

_No_. “I’m not, uh, ready to share. But I’ve done a lot of thinking since, and I have wanted to say I’m sorry, and I guess now I have the chance. So: I’m sorry.” He hopes it sounds sincere. 

Viktor still looks troubled. “Thank you, I guess. I’m sorry, too. Sorry it didn’t mean the same thing for you.” 

Yuuri glances at his phone. It’s only been ten, maybe fifteen minutes, and here’s the thing: it’s weird and awkward, but Yuuri’s not having a terrible time. “So, are you from around here?” 

“Oh, no. My parents came over in ‘93. I was seven. What about you?” 

And, just like that, they start over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes: Yuuri's internal voice is kinda hard on him. He also reflects a little bit about recovery and going to a bar as a non-drinker.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What does Yurio think of all of this? spoiler alert: it involves a lot of swearing.

Yuri Plisetsky spends most of his time being annoyed. People (weaker people) have told him that this sounds like an exhausting way to live, but Yuri knows that it just makes him more powerful. At the rate this week is going, he will be invincible by Friday. 

One of the things that only annoys Yuri a little bit is his job. He likes this because most people hate their jobs, and Yuri likes nothing more than screwing with what people think of him. He likes to get up before the sun and rollerblade to the bakery before the roads get full of traffic. He likes the weird yeasty, funky, alcohol smell of fermenting dough. He likes the smell of the wood from the old pizza oven. He likes the soreness in his shoulders when he’s finished a huge batch of bread. He likes, maybe even loves looking at the cooling racks all full of singing loaves that _he_ made. He likes hearing customers ooh and ahh over the breads and the bakery and the cafes au lait that Phichit makes with the chicory coffee that he has shipped in from New Orleans in bulk. 

He even likes the weird little cyst that formed in his right wrist from so much kneading. He presses it when he’s bored, wiggling it around under the skin. His boss says people used to call them “Bible Cysts” because the recommended treatment was smashing them with a heavy book. Yuri thinks this is cool, but the cyst is cooler, so he leaves it alone. 

Yuri’s boss is also only a little bit annoying. Bosses. Whatever. Phichit is a little more annoying because they talk more and they’re always, like, happy. Yuri wouldn’t describe himself an _un_ happy, but Phichit’s exuberance can be a little hard to take sometimes. Still, they are actually pretty funny (maybe not quite as funny as they think they are), and they tag Yuri whenever they post a cat picture, which is thoughtful. 

Yuuri is Yuri’s _real_ boss and, yeah, the name thing gets old sometimes. Phichit started calling him Yurio when he got the job and that was annoying at first, but he’s used to it now, and he has to admit that it makes things easier. Even so, Yuuri is cool. Not, like, Cool, just, you know, _cool_. Yuri started working at Haus of Pain not too long after he moved to Vancouver. He thought it would be easy, a bullshit job so he would have some money that he didn’t have to ask his grandpa for, maybe save up to move out of the campus housing and into some cool house with a bunch of other art weirdos or something. He didn’t think he’d work here more than a year. He sure as fuck didn’t think he’d start staying in town over Christmas break just to help with all of the holiday orders. 

He still doesn’t know why he got the job. Sure, he’d been in the coffee shop a few times. It wasn’t far from campus and, while the name was dumb, it had kind of a cool vibe. It was the kind of weird, funky, homey combination that a bunch of places tried to be, but didn’t have the balls to actually pull off. Yuuri and Phichit were always bringing in random crap: chairs they found in thrift stores, lamps from the side of the road, a mannequin that looked like it had been in a fire, framed Mapplethorpe prints. The walls were dark and the music was loud and the coffee was strong. It was the kind of place you opened if you really didn’t give a fuck what people thought they wanted. It was the kind of place that knew it had good shit, and if you couldn’t figure that out, then fuck you. Or that was how Yuri thought of it. Yuuri and Phichit would probably just say something about wanting a place that felt like theirs. 

So, Yuri liked the place okay, even if he mostly just crashed in, ordered a coffee and took off. They didn’t give him shit about his rollerblades, either, which was also very okay of them. So, this one day it was foggy, like it always was, and Yuri came in, like he always did, half stumbling through the door and rolling right up to the counter only to find a new guy, not the cheery Thai person he usually grunted at. This was just a short guy in a pair of dumpy cargo shorts and a t-shirt that was covered with flour. He was leaning against the espresso machine and looked like he was thinking about hiding behind it. 

“Who the fuck are you?” He could grunt at this guy just as easy. 

The guy looked startled, but he also kind of looked like he was always startled. “I, uh, work here?” He looked like he wasn’t even very sure about that. “I mean, I own the bakery.” 

“No, for real. Where’s Phichit?” 

“They’re sick. I figured I could hold down the fort.” He glanced back behind the cooling racks into the bakery area with a gaze that seemed homesick, or something. Yuri had never paid much attention to it before. It wasn’t where the caffeine came from. 

“Yeah, you’re doing a fucking great job.” The guy grinned, then, which was not the reaction that Yuri usually got. “Whatever. Coffee.” He held out his mug. “Please.” 

“Okay, good. I can do coffee.” It turned out he could do coffee, not like it took a ton of skill to hold a mug under a spigot and pour, but at this point, Yuri didn’t have much faith in this guy. He came back to the counter and started tentatively pressing buttons on the register, jabbing and withdrawing his fingers like he was touching something hot, or expected the register to bite. He looked over his shoulder again like he couldn’t wait to get back to his dumb bread or something. 

Yuri’s stomach grumbled. “Hey, can I get one of those almond things, too?” 

“Oh, the _kouign amann_?” 

“Excuse you?” 

“These?” He pointed, looking way happier than he had any right to and Yuri nodded. One of the pastries made its way into a paper bag, and the idiot started poking at the register again. It made a loud ringing sound, and the drawer popped open, which Yuri figured meant progress, but apparently he was wrong. With a heavy sigh, the guy shoved the bag and the coffee into Yuri’s hands. “On the house,” Yuri knew when a smile was fake, and this was one of those times. 

Still, free food was free food, especially free food that smelled gloriously of butter and benzaldehyde. He might have been drooling. “Uh, thanks.” He started to leave. “Hey, uh, you really make this stuff?” 

The guy nodded, pushing up his glasses. 

“You kinda suck at the people part, but this place is okay.” If there was one thing Yuri understood, it was being so bad at people that no one noticed the things you were good at. “You should, like, hire someone so you don’t have to do the shitty stuff.” 

The guy’s face brightened, then, and it was like the sun came out or some shit. He rummaged around under the counter and handed Yuri a couple of stapled sheets of paper. “I know - we’re actually hiring. Maybe you wouldn’t suck.” 

“Tch. Whatever.” He turned to leave, “Hey, what’s your name?” It seemed kinda shitty to keep calling the guy _idiot_ in his head when he _had_ given him free food, even if it was just because of incompetence and not generosity. 

“Oh, I’m Yuuri.” 

Seriously. What the Fuck. 

Still, Yuri had hung on to the application for, like two months. He waited until a new guy appeared, younger than him, blond, with a dumb red streak dyed in the front of his hair. This guy was even more fucking cheerful than Phichit. As soon as he knew he was safe, he turned in the application even though it was torn and covered with charcoal dust from being tucked in his drawing pad. 

And that was how Yuri learned that he may be a stubborn asshole but the other Yuuri is a bigger stubborner asshole. A week later, Yuri was dragging his ass out of bed at a truly inhuman hour to learn how to make pastries with unpronounceable names. 

  
  


All of that is a lot of words to say that Yuri likes his job. He’s been doing it for, like, three years now, and it turns out that he’s really fucking good at it. He’s good enough at it that Yuuri has been steadily teaching him what he knows. One summer, he even paid for Yuri to go the the Kneading Conference in Maine. The next spring, he helped Yuri write a proposal for a conference session on the hearth loaves they’d started making from ancient wheat strains grown at the Bread Lab down in Burlington. Yuri doesn’t like to think about too hard is why Yuuri is spending so much time training him, because it makes him think about someday not making bread with Yuuri. 

The thing he doesn’t like, the thing that annoys him beyond all reason, is school. He didn’t mind it the first couple of years. The novelty of learning the shit he wanted to learn, of meeting other art weirdos, of living away from home was exciting enough that it took him a while to notice that the academic art world was just as stupid and annoying and formulaic as anything he had encountered in high school. The professors were sacrificing anything like actual creativity for marketability and tenure and the students were busy doing the same thing for grades. Everyone was learning to be safe and boring and to pour themselves into whatever dumb Fine Art Academia mold they could find. No one seemed to remember that drawing shit was fun as fuck and was busy writing theses and artists statements justifying their work. Yuri was pretty fucking certain that no one actually liked drawing naked ladies that much and was equally certain that if he saw one more photographic exhibition that was nothing but black and white portraits of grizzled fishermen and underexposed interiors of slaughterhouses (ooh - so fucking gritty!), he was going to do something to embarrass his grandfather. 

Even worse were the professors: a bunch of pretentious dickheads with nothing better to do than fight other departments for recognition and resources. He didn’t know when the art world had decided that anything actually useful or entertaining or fun was anathema, but if he ever found the douchebag responsible, he would impale them on a canvas stretcher. Or maybe he would just start with the ceramics professor who had informed then that symmetry was inherently boring and that functional ceramic pieces would not be tolerated in his class, all while slip casting a whole series of perfectly boring, symmetrical skulls with absolutely no difference between them other than glaze. The asshole hadn’t even shown up for the last three weeks of classes and instead of actually grading them had just posting a notice informing them that they had all gotten B’s. Yuri acknowledged that it was a better grade than he deserved but it still pissed him off. 

Actually, no, he won’t start with that guy. He has bigger assholes to deal with. Two weeks ago, in March, just over two months away from being done with the entire fucking thing, the bullshit world of academia had invaded his work, his sacred haven of carbs and caffeine and things that _actually_ make people happy. 

Viktor Fucking Nikiforov. 

This fucking guy. He’d had Nikiforov for advanced figure drawing last year, and that had been the class that had soured him on the whole fucking college experience. The guy could draw, no doubt about it, and he wasn’t even a total disaster as a teacher, but something about him was so checked out, so bored, that it seeped into everything. He would lead the class with this fucking fake smile on his face, offer the same bland crits every time, pose the same model the same way. No one else seemed to notice, though, all of his classmates fawning over this guy who couldn’t have cared less about them. Even that would have been okay. Yuri didn’t care about people either. But the guy didn’t even give a shit about his own stuff, and it fucking showed. 

Yuri survived the semester and swore he’d never take another class from the black hole of suck again. Then, the fucking Vancouver Works on Paper Biennial. His first acceptance to a major juried show and he had won a motherfucking award. Actual cash money in exchange for art. Yuri had been so proud, so stoked. Yuuri was, too. Yuuri was like that, always so happy for everybody around him, so proud of the bread family. He would go to Minami’s school musicals, he would go watch Phichit emcee karaoke nights, he would go to Yuri’s art bullshit, even when Yuri told him that it was dumb and a waste of time and he didn’t have to. 

That had been what he had told Yuuri that night, too. “It’s probably dumb. It’s, like, not even a big deal. You really don’t have to come.” 

Yuuri ignored him. Of course he did, even with everything else going on, he would come to support Yuri. It was awesome, too. He got to show Yuuri the woodcut he’d done of him. Yuuri finally got to see the sculpture Otabek had been working on. He even introduced him to the printmaking department head, Lilia. Yuuri seemed to share his opinion that she was scary but cool. 

Then, the worst possible thing ever happened. He was talking to Beka, in a corner, making fun of a colored pencil drawing of a tree with tits, when he saw Nikiforov sidle up to Yuuri at the snack table. He almost choked on the goat cheese stuffed pepper he was eating. But it got worse, because Yuuri was smiling and laughing and not telling the pretentious asshole to get lost. He knew it was bad when Nikiforov smiled, and it wasn’t the weird frozen smile he used when he was lecturing. This was a real smile that touched his eyes. Then Yuuri poured a glass of wine. 

Yuri hid then, he wasn’t proud of it. Maybe he should have said something, but what do you say to a fucking adult who can make their own fucking decisions? He didn’t even really know Yuuri’s deal, he just knew that he didn’t drink, and if someone asked, he would joke that he stopped drinking because he was “too good at it.” Apparently, Yuuri wasn’t in a joking mood that night. So he avoided Yuuri, and maybe Yuuri was looking for him, maybe not. He didn’t know. Otabek kept him company in the stairwell for a while, then they wandered to the other galleries to see the high school art show. Some of it didn’t suck. 

Eventually Beka persuaded him to go back. Beka was responsible like that, but it didn’t usually annoy Yuri this much. It turned out that they should have stayed gone. Yuuri was still talking to Nikiforov. Even worse, they were dancing. A lot of people were dancing. Yuri was _so_ ready to go home, and Otabek had said he would give him a ride, but some dumb, loyal part of him didn’t want to leave Yuuri hanging. 

Finally, with a dumb, breathless laugh, Yuuri patted Nikiforov on the chest and headed for the bathroom. Yuri followed him and waited in the hall. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” 

“Oh, hey, Yurio. Thanks for inviting me, this was really fun.” Yuuri was doing that thing he did when he didn’t want to talk about something. At least he didn’t seem drunk, just kind of tired. He looked past Yuri’s shoulder, and Yuri knew who he was searching for. He ground his teeth. 

“You don’t drink,” was all he could come up with. 

Yuuri pulled himself up and folded his arms like he was trying to look tough but he just looked kinda pissy. “Yeah, well, I guess I do tonight.” 

“What is wrong with you? Maybe you can’t see through that loser -” 

“Maybe you should shut up about things that aren’t your business,” Yuuri snapped. 

That was weird. That felt wrong. Yuuri almost never lost his temper. “What the fuck, man? I’m so fucking sorry I had the nerve to be worried about you. This isn’t like you and you know it.” Yuri didn’t like being worried. 

Yuuri went kinda blank for a second, then he got quiet. “I know, I just needed -Oh, Um, Viktor, Hey.” Yuuri tucked his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. 

“Everything good?” Nikiforov asked, like he wasn’t an asshole who just interrupted Yuri trying to take care of his friend. He was looking at Yuri like _he_ was the one doing something wrong. 

Yuri was so fucking done with this bullshit. “Whatever. We’re all adults, so I guess you get to make whatever stupid decisions you want, right?” 

“Yurio -” 

“It’s cool. Otabek already said he’ll give me a lift home.” 

“Okay, be safe?” 

“Yeah, sure, you too.” He wasn’t gonna let Nikiforov go unscathed, though. “Hey old man.” 

“Yes?” 

“You know I should’ve won, right?” 

“I do.” Yuri ignored the way he said it all quiet like he actually meant it. 

“Tch. I still think you’re an idiot who should just retire, already.” 

“Yurio,” scolds Yuuri. 

“Fuck all yall. I’m going home.” 

He had wanted to say something so Yuuri would know he wasn’t actually pissed at him, just at Viktor Fucking Nikiforov and whatever the fuck was going on with Yuuri but the _see you tomorrow_ got stuck in his throat as he took off. 

  
  


As it turned out, he didn’t see Yuuri the next day, or the day after. Yuuri was gone for two weeks, and Yuri and Phichit did the best they could without him. Sometimes Yuuri would come in over night and feed the starters and prep some pastry. He left weird rambly instructions written out on legal pads for Yuri and Phichit looked more worried every day. 

Then he was back, same old Yuuri, ready to work but kinda sad looking; all pale and trembly and apologizing until it got awkward. Things mostly went back to normal with no further fanfare or explanation. 

Until March, when Viktor Fucking Nikiforov decides to drop, like a turd, back into the toilet bowl of Yuri’s life. 

Yuri isn’t even there the first time Nikiforov shows up, and that’s a goddamn shame because he sure as fuck would have put a stop to this bullshit. He tries to talk some sense into Yuuri. Is he the only person who remembers the last time? Yuuri, stupid, _nice_ Yuuri, without an ounce of self preservation in his body, insists that whatever happened before wasn’t because of Nikiforov. It wasn’t even about him at all! He was an innocent bystander. _Ha fucking ha._

He comes back. Of course he comes back, and because Yuri can’t have nice things, Viktor tries to talk to him. 

“Hello, Yurio! How’s the semester treating you?” 

“You don’t get to call me that, old man.” 

“No reason to be so rude. I just wondered how the thesis show was coming along. I can’t wait to see it!” 

He actually sounds sincere and Yuri doesn’t know what to do with that. “I spit in one of the bialy. Phichit knows which one to give you.” 

Phichit hands the roll to the old man. “Don’t worry - he’s kidding.” 

“No, I’m not.” 

“Behave, Yurio.” 

That’s when Yuuri comes up from the storeroom with a tote full of spelt. “Yurio cares too much about his work to do that.” He plops the tote onto the prep table and weaves his way between the cooling racks to the front end. “Hey,” he says, his voice going kind of soft when he talks to Nikiforov. 

It takes all of Yuri’s self control not to throw up right there on the baguette. 

  
  


When Nikiforov comes back the next day, Yuuri’s whole face lights up and his eyes go even bigger and sparklier than normal. He bops up to the counter with more energy than anyone should have before seven a.m. 

“I made a couple with extra poppy seeds for you,” he says, sticking the bialy into a bag. Yuri used to like bialy. 

“Good morning, Yurio,” Nikiforov calls back to him. “How are you today?” 

“I hope you fail a drug test.” He jabs the lame into the pain de campagne with such ferocity that he almost cuts the loaf in half. Yuuri gives him the next day off. 

  
  


He complains about it to Otabek as they drive the el Camino up to Whistler. Beka just shrugs and has the nerve to say that he thought Nikiforov seemed okay. Yuri doesn’t talk to him for at least fifteen kilometers for that. A few hours in the backcountry sorts him out. It’s hard to focus on other people’s bullshit when there’s fresh powder on the mountain. 

They roll back into town tired and chilled out. A quick text to Phichit provides cover as Yuri and Otabek sneak into the bakery. Predictably, Phichit demands a cut of whatever they’re up to in exchange for secrecy. While Otabek reads off the recipe, Yuri assembles the dough. They stick it in the proofing drawer to rise and Otabek helps him with the filling, chopping onions and dill while Yuri sautees the beef. He keeps thinking he should find something special, a secret ingredient to add but he can’t bring himself to fuck with grandpa Nikolai’s recipe. 

Beka isn’t as fast at stuffing the piroshki as Yuri, but Yuri doesn’t say anything. They watch an episode of Invader Zim while they rise and an episode of Robot Chicken while they bake, then Otabek takes off with some of the funnier looking piroshki for his dinner and Yuri is left standing in front of the stairs to the apartment over the bakery. 

Phichit lifts an eyebrow when they answer the door and Yuri hands them a paper bag. They peak inside and nod approvingly. “He’s in the kitchen.” 

“Thanks.” 

They make a show of putting the earbuds back in and disappear to somewhere Yuri can’t see them. 

As promised, Yuuri is in the kitchen, pouring hot water into a mug. 

“Here,” Yuri drops the bag on the counter. It’s a tiny kitchen, barely worth the name. “Eat one.” 

Yuuri looks in the bag and grins. “Are these -?” 

“Yeah, Dedushka’s recipe. C’mon, you have to eat one before this gets weird.” 

Yuuri pulls out one of the meat pies, and offers the bag to Yuri. “Oh my god,” he breaks his piroshki in half and smells the filling. “These smell amazing.” The steam fogs up his glasses. 

“God, shut up and eat one, why do you have to make everything weird?” He takes a bite of his own roll, “Itadakimasu, or whatever.” 

Yuuri digs in and Yuri pretends he isn’t desperately listening for his reaction. “Oh wow.” Yuuri makes a super gross noise. 

“Good, right?” 

“Mmhm.” They finish the rolls in silence. “Water?” 

“Yeah.” He fidgets while Yuuri fills a glass. “So, I’m sorry about being an asshole.” 

Yuuri hands him the water with a faint smirk. “Yurio, you’re going to need to be way more specific.” 

“Shut up. You know what I mean.” Ugh. Apologies are the worst. “Anyway, whatever. Do what you want. I’ll be chill.” 

“Good to know. I will also be chill.” Yuuri fidgets with his tea bag. “I know things are a little -” 

“Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s fine.” Yuri chugs the rest of his water. He hates it when Yuuri looks worried like that. “I gotta go.” 

“Okay. See you in the morning.” 

“Whatever,” he hesitates, then points at the bag. “You should save one for Nikiforov.” When Yuuri gives him one of those surprised looks of his, he says, “Just so he knows my grandpa’s recipe is better than whatever shitty piroshki they make in his family.” 

“Right. Got it. I will make sure that he is aware that the Plisetsky family piroshki are superior to Nikiforov piroshki.” 

“You’re goddamn right.” 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “O.M.G. Yuuri,” Phichit holds up a stem of dill, tiny yellow flowers bobbing as they hold it in front of Yurio’s scowling face and snap a picture. “I just had an amazing, genius idea.”
> 
> “What?
> 
> “You need to come up with a bread that’s seasoned with dill -”
> 
> “They rye has d-”
> 
> “Don’t interrupt, I’m having an epiphany,” they scold, tapping Yurio on the nose with the flower as they put their phone away. “Anyway, a bread that is _mostly_ seasoned with dill. A Dill Dough, if you will.” They pause dramatically and Minami cackles from the cash register.
> 
> Yurio bats the flower out of his face. “Have I mentioned that I hate you all?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting down to the wire, and stuff's, er, gettin' real. Finally, Yuuri's perspective on the fateful art show and some answers. PLEASE, PLEASE see end notes for content warnings, especially if you have concerns about the illness tag.

Twenty years ago, Katsuki Yuuri had his first drink. His parents were out of the house and his older sister was avoiding him. He had decided that he wanted to know what it felt like to be drunk, so he mixed orange juice into vodka until he could stand it and chugged it down. Then he washed his mother’s minivan. It was emphatically anticlimactic and he felt no need to revisit the stuff. 

Thirteen years ago, Yuuri moved in with his college boyfriend. He learned to like beer. It was mostly a foodie thing: fancy micro-brews and interesting liqueurs from Eastern Europe. Sure, there were a couple of parties when he overdid it, but who doesn’t overindulge in college? 

It’s still hard to place when the change happened. Maybe it was when they broke up and Yuuri didn’t have anyone to perform for him anymore. Maybe it was when he took that promotion to management. Maybe the thirst was always there. 

Seven years ago, Yuuri decided to stop drinking. He decided that his health was important and was concerned that he had already killed his liver. Yuuri went to the doctor. He chugged half a flask of gin in the back of the bus, then ate approximately sixteen Altoids. The phlebotomist had trouble finding a vein, which earned him a lecture about hydration. Water turned his stomach in those days. The doctor looked so startled and lost when he started to talk about his drinking, that he found himself lying, downplaying, and he left with a handout about area AA meetings. 

Five years ago, Yuuri _actually_ stopped drinking. It was the hardest thing he had ever down. He also quit his job, sold his condo and took out a loan with Phichit. Opening the bakery was the second hardest thing he’d ever done. AA would have told him not to make any major life changes in the first year of sobriety. Yeah, well, fuck AA. 

Four years ago, Yuuri went to the doctor. The same one as before. He left with the same AA pamphlet and a referral to a dermatologist. He leaves the dermatologist with a chunk scooped out of his back and even more extreme phobia about phone calls than usual. Yes, it was a melanoma. Yes, it looks like they got it all but Yuuri will have to be vigilant for the rest of his life. Yuuri hates this. He hates hospitals, hates doctors, hates having to think and answer questions while he’s trying not to have a panic attack every time someone says something about survival rates. 

Six months ago, Yuuri went to a reception. He didn’t really want to go but his friend, his padawan, the genius who would (probably, Yuuri hadn’t asked him yet) lead Haus of Pain into a glorious gluteny future, had won his first award in a juried art exhibition. Yuuri could forget his own bullshit for one night and go be happy for a friend. One night wasn’t going to make a difference. 

Yuuri didn’t know if he really understood Art. Some of the things that Yurio mocked as trite or formulaic or “fucking boring ass bullshit” looked fine to him. He was mesmerized by all of it, the silky shadows in a photograph, the jagged carved lines in Yurio’s woodcuts, the vibrant green in a landscape, the way the softness of skin was somehow perfectly rendered with nothing more than a chunk of burnt wood rubbed across ground up trees, or “On Love: Eros, Charcoal on Paper, Viktor Nikiforov.”. He was staring at the drawing, thinking about skin when he noticed the guy next to him. Tall, striking, sharp features and hair so pale it was almost silver. He winked one of his bright blue eyes at Yuuri and said something snotty about the drawing. Yuuri didn’t even know what he said in response. He just knew that he needed to be somewhere else. Somewhere else ended up being the snack table. 

He looked at the bottles of wine, such a pretty shade of green. Yuuri didn’t particularly like wine. _Fuck it_. He picked up a plastic cup. 

“No matter how hard you stare, none of them will turn into the Chateau Mouton Rothschild, I’m afraid.” Ah, joy. His pretentious new friend had followed him. 

“Is that a wine?” He let his voice be as flat and blank as he felt. His glasses were sliding down, so he pushed them up and pulled his beanie down. He wondered where Yurio had snuck off to. Maybe they could make their escape soon. 

Art Snob chuckled, “I’m sorry about that. I suppose I’m not so good at starting conversations. Here,” He lifted a bottle of wine and filled Yuuri’s cup. Because that was a normal thing to do when you didn’t know that someone was about to throw four and a half years of sobriety out the window. “I’m Viktor Nikiforov, and I’m pleased that you like my drawing.” 

Not a snob. Self-deprecating, fishing for compliments, maybe. Flirting? Yuuri caught his gaze on his hands and felt his cheeks warm up. “Oh, wow. And I thought _I_ was awkward.” He took a swallow of his wine. It wasn’t very good, but it was somehow warm without being warm and he felt something in his chest loosen. He had been fighting so hard and none of it meant anything. Tonight, he decided, just tonight, he would put it all down, he would be a different person. Real life could get back to killing him tomorrow. “Yuuri,” he offered, setting down the cup and extending his hand. 

He didn’t plan for it to go quite so far but, decision made, he found himself enjoying Viktor more than the wine. They talked, they looked at art together. Viktor seemed genuinely interested in what Yuuri said, asking question after question about each piece, what he saw in it, what he liked about it. He laughed at some of the things Yuuri said, but never cruelly. 

He laughed more when Yuuri took his hand and led him to an empty spot on the floor. It was warmer and it looked like he might be staying a bit longer anyway, so he yanked off his hat and tucked it in his pocket. The DJ was mixing Django Reinhardt with some hip hop beats and Yuuri hadn’t been president of his high school’s swing dance club for nothing. 

There was more dancing, another cup of wine, and not nearly as much wondering where Yurio had disappeared to as there should have been. It was fun, even though that seemed like it should be impossible. 

Until Yurio found him grabbed him by the elbow and got in his face. “What the fuck are you doing?” 

Yuuri was honestly shocked at how angry it made him. He gritted his teeth and tried to sound pleasant. “Oh, hey, Yurio. Thanks for inviting me, this was really fun.” 

“You don’t drink,” he hissed and usually, he wasn’t wrong. Usually Yuuri didn’t want to blow up his entire fucking life. 

“Yeah, well, I guess I do tonight.” Viktor is across the room, talking to a tall blond man who looks vaguely familiar. God, he hopes he can’t hear this. 

“What is wrong with you? Maybe you can’t see through that loser -” 

“Maybe you should shut up about things that aren’t your business,” Yuuri snapped. Maybe Yuuri was sick of people wanting to help and thought it would be nice if people would just let him get on with his self destruction in peace. 

“What the fuck, man? I’m so fucking sorry I had the nerve to be worried about you.” Yuuri had been working with Yurio long enough to know that his rage and desperation weren’t quite bedfellows, but they at least shared the same cubicle. Yurio paused and got a little quieter. “This isn’t like you, and you know it.” 

He can’t explain right now, even if Yurio is being as vulnerable as he knows how to be. “I know, I just needed - Oh. Um. Viktor. Hey.” Yuuri tucked his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels, hoping he didn’t look as close to tears as he felt. 

“Everything good?” He gave Yuuri a look that asked all kinds of questions. Yuuri didn’t have a single answer. 

Yurio ignored him. “Whatever. We’re all adults, so I guess you get to make whatever stupid decisions you want, right?” 

“Yurio -” _What? Forgive me? Maybe try not being an asshole._ Yuuri’s internal monologue has started to sound a lot like Yurio. 

“It’s cool. Otabek already said he’ll give me a lift home.” 

What can he say? Everything says too much and not enough all at once. “Okay, be safe?” 

“Yeah, sure, you too.” The sincerity dropped when he turned his bright green eyes on Viktor, and sneered, “Hey old man.” 

“Yes?” 

“You know I should’ve won, right?” 

“I do.” 

“Tch. I still think you’re an idiot who sure just retire, already.” 

At least Yuuri didn’t feel so guilty anymore. Now he’s just embarrassed. “Yurio,” he scolded. 

“Fuck all yall. I’m going home.” With that he stalked off. Otabek gave Yuuri a half-hearted wave, but that was no more or less demonstrative than usual. 

“Well, that was - huh,” Viktor seemed slightly stunned. 

“Dramatic?” offered Yuuri. “That’s Yurio,” and that was Yurio, angry and rude, but so young and so fearless. 

“Friend of yours?” Viktor asked. Yuuri would not have hesitated to answer that on any other day, but now? Maybe not after this. 

“Co-worker.” Yuuri didn’t want to think about whether he might have ruined even that. He didn’t want to think about anything, so he just said, “Well, it looks like I’m free for the rest of the night. Got any ideas?” 

Six months and one week ago, Yuuri had gone to the doctor. He went in slightly worried about a little soreness under his right arm. He came out with an appointment for a sentinel node biopsy. 

Six months and one day ago, he got the results. 

Today, Yuuri has a date. A real one. After work, he and Viktor will to go somewhere together. Somewhere farther away than the walk around the block they take when Viktor stops in for his coffee and bialy. Yuuri watches the clock on his breaks, afraid that if he doesn’t, he’ll keep Viktor longer than he means to , afraid that he’ll leave his coworkers hanging. He’s already been unreliable enough and it feels terrible and icky to think of all the times that Yurio and Phichit and even Minami have picked up his slack over the last six months. Yurio keeps telling him (well, shouting, actually) that he shouldn’t feel bad about taking care of himself and that the rest of them aren’t actually complete incompetents and that contrary to Yuuri’s opinion, they actually _can_ handle the bakery for twenty fucking minutes without being micromanaged like a pack of idiot children, goddamnit! Then he gets quiet and mutters something that Yuuri’s never been brave enough to ask him to repeat.. 

Yuuri’s nervous. He can feel it, and if the way Yurio keeps grunting at him is any indication, he can feel it too. Phichit and Minami just turn up the music and ignore them. Viktor doesn’t come in that morning. It’s Friday, and Yuuri already knows that Viktor doesn’t come on Fridays because he doesn’t have class until noon and that’s when he goes for his long run. Viktor is training for a marathon. Yuuri has learned a shocking amount about Viktor’s schedule in two weeks worth of walks around the block. 

He’s interrupted by Phichit. “Oh, Yuuri! Someone has sent you severed plant genitals. Do you want me to put them in water?” 

Yurio rolls his eyes at them, “Why are you you?” 

“Oh, kitten. People will think you don’t love me!” Phichit mock gasps. 

Yuuri’s elbow deep in a bucket of sourdough starter, but he catches a whiff of lavender as Phichit walks past. It’s a big bouquet. Too big, maybe, all shades of greens and purples. 

A sprig of mint catches his eye and he looks closer. Yep, artichoke, Bolshoi kale, squash blossoms…He chuckles. “Phichit, just grab a salad bowl.” 

Phichit pauses and looks closer at the bouquet. Yurio comes over and snatches a leaf of basil, earning himself a smack on the wrist. He shoves it in his mouth and gives Phichit a mutinous glare as he chews. He stalks off to the storage area and comes back with a big mason jar full of water. Yuuri and Phichit exchange a look. “What? It’s actually kind of cool,” Yurio comments as he arranges the bouquet in the makeshift vase. “Don’t tell him I said that.” 

Phichit mimes zipping their lips. 

Yuuri nods. “Hey, Yurio? Is there any rosemary in there?” 

Yurio paws through the bouquet and pulls out a sprig. 

“Cool. Hit me,” he tips his head back and opens his mouth like a baby bird. 

Yurio rolls his eyes, but he still brings it to Yuuri. “You’re such a weirdo,” he huffs. 

“O.M.G. Yuuri,” Phichit holds up a stem of dill, tiny yellow flowers bobbing as they hold it in front of Yurio’s scowling face and snap a picture. “I just had an amazing, genius idea.” 

“What? 

“You need to come up with a bread that’s seasoned with dill -” 

“They rye has d-” 

“Don’t interrupt, I’m having an epiphany,” they scold, tapping Yurio on the nose with the flower as they put their phone away. “Anyway, a bread that is _mostly_ seasoned with dill. A Dill Dough, if you will.” They pause dramatically and Minami cackles from the cash register. 

Yurio bats the flower out of his face. “Have I mentioned that I hate you all.” 

They’re going to meet up at the restaurant - a Nepalese place that Yuuri’s been wanting to try - but when he gets off the train he sees that he has somehow missed a text. 

“Gonna b a little late.” 

He checks the time. It was sent ten minutes ago. Yuuri brain starts spooling up, the anxiety gaining power. Oh god what did he do? He needs to respond, Viktor will think he’s mad. Maybe Viktor changed his mind, maybe he realized he doesn’t want to come. Maybe he remembered the time that he hooked up with Yuuri and Yuuri bolted out the door with no explanation. Maybe he remembered the time that Yuuri told him he regretted that night. Maybe he’s figured out that Yuuri is way too much effort and decided that since he looks like a fucking model he just won’t bother… 

“K,” he replies. That looks awful, that one letter sitting there on the screen. “Sorry, on the train, just saw this.” That’s not much better. 

“Like 5/10 minutes. Order me a drink?” a pause. “Shit. Sorry. Nvm.” 

It occurs to Yuuri that he might not be the only person feeling a little nervous about this. After all, he’s the one who did the running off last time. Viktor is taking quite a chance on him. Besides, what does he have to be nervous about? This is hardly a classic first date, anyway. He’s already been inside Viktor’s apartment, after all. For that matter, he’s already been inside Viktor. 

Yuuri considers just claiming a table and looking at the menu, but the thought is unsatisfying. He doesn’t know why it matters, but he wants to walk in with Viktor, so he takes a lap around the block. If Viktor isn’t here yet, then he’ll go in. He gets lucky, as he approaches the corner of Davie, he spots Viktor stepping onto the rainbow flag crosswalk. It helps that Viktor looks the way he does, all tall and lean, with that silvery hair all ruffled in the breeze of his motion. He hasn’t seen Yuuri yet. In fairness, he’s probably unrecognizable in a knitted beanie and his bulky brown coat. He really should upgrade his wardrobe now that the bakery’s doing better. 

VIktor, on the other hand, is his usual magazine-quality self, even if he looks a little flustered, pausing as soon as he’s out of the intersection to adjust the cuffs of his sleeves and run a hand through his hair. He steps into the shadow of an awning and pulls out his phone. With a quick glance around, he holds it aloft and lifts his chin. Yuuri lives with Phichit Chulanont and he knows a selfie when he sees one. He jogs up, as sneakily as he can. The way Viktor shakes his bangs out into his face, then tosses them back almost distracts him from his mission. He gets close enough to see himself come into frame on the phone before Viktor notices and turns the camera on him. 

“Smile, Yuuri!” He loops one of his long arms around Yuuri’s shoulder and draws him close. It’s the most they’ve touched, well, since last fall. It takes Yuuri a second to relax into it but once he does it’s, well, nice. Viktor notices, though, and lets him go, putting his phone away. “I would have thought you’d be coming the other way.” 

“Yeah, well, I had some time to kill.” 

“Sorry about that. Minor crisis.” 

“Everything okay?” 

“Oh, yes, just a bit of roommate drama.” 

“I didn’t realize you had a roommate.” In his defense, he hadn’t taken in much about Viktor’s apartment the last time. 

“Yes. I think you actually know each other. Or know of each other?” Viktor pulled open the door of the restaurant for him. “Christophe Giacometti?” 

Yuuri shakes his head. 

“He says you go to Barre Code sometimes? Tall, blond. He’d be offended if I didn’t mention his ass.” 

“Oh, Chris. Yeah, no, that’s fair. About the ass, I mean. It is epic.” It’s been ages since Yuuri’s been to class. 

“Hm. I’ve seen better,” Viktor comments, as he follows Yuuri and the hostess to a table. Yuuri can feel the tips of his ears go warm. 

“Thank you for the flowers, by the way. I’ve never seen a bouquet like that.” 

Viktor looks pleased, “The Co-op I belong to has a florist that does them. It seemed like a good gift for someone who works with food.” 

“As long as you don’t mind if they turn into salad this weekend.” 

“Yuuri, I’d be offended if you didn’t eat my blossoms.” 

Their server quirks an eyebrow as she sets their drinks down in front of them and Yuuri can feel his blush spread to his cheeks. Viktor, on the other hand seems completely unfazed as he asks a question about something on the menu. 

They order, a vegetarian thing with black-eyed peas and potatoes for Viktor and a grilled goat salad for Yuuri. They talk, Viktor telling stories about his students, about department politics. Yuuri finds himself telling Viktor all about his family, stories about the puppy he had as a kid, embarrassing things, silly things, true things. He tells him about the period during middle school when he got hard-core into ballet, and the posters of Baryshnikov that had covered his walls. 

“Wait, your dog’s name was Mik-chan?” Viktor giggles, “that’s adorable!” 

“Well, her real name was Mikhail Baryshnikov Katsuki. Mom shortened it.” 

Somehow that turns into a conversation about nicknames, which turns into diminutives, which makes Yuuri’s head spin in a pleasant way. 

The food is excellent, but neither of them really notices and most of it gets packed up for later. There’s the awkward moment that always happens at the end of the meal, but by now Yuuri is feeling bold, so he grabs the check. “You can get the next one,” he says when Viktor starts to protest. That stops Viktor in his tracks. His mouth snaps shut and his small pleased smile turns Yuuri’s heart into a puddle of gooey marshmallow. 

He toys with the edge of his compression sleeve as he waits for the server to process his card. He catches Viktor watching when he looks up again and that slams him back to reality. Viktor looks away, like he’s embarrassed to have been caught looking and Yuuri knows he can’t keep this in anymore. 

“Hey, Viktor? Can we go somewhere more private?” He asks as he signs the check. He winces. There’s no way that doesn’t sound like a come on, so he elaborates, “To talk, I mean.” 

They go back to Viktor’s apartment. It’s close, and unlike Yuuri’s, it has real walls. Chris is out, which is for the best. The note he left leaves Yuuri positive that he can expect a shovel talkin the near future. 

Viktor makes a pot of tea. They sit on the couch and Yuuri tells him everything. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We hear a little bit more about Yuuri's alcoholism and relapse. We also learn that Yuuri has been treated for melanoma in the past and that he has recently learned that his lymph nodes are affected (it's pretty oblique and light on details in this chapter - I've been more explicit here than in the text). This is where I would recommend tapping out if reading about this type of illness is going to negatively affect you. Chapter 5 will be more intense in this regard, but not without its sweet moments. It strikes me as very on brand that i manage to combine the sweetest things i've ever written with the saddest.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> welp, here it is. read the notes, unless you like to live dangerously. the end note includes spoilery information about content in this chapter: i recommend reading it if you have any qualms about the unhappy ending or illness tags.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy Shitsnacks, y'all. thank you so much for reading this and commenting and everything. this was the fic that wouldn't leave me alone and i almost scrapped it several times. i appreciate everyone who took a chance on this thing: it ended up being close to my heart, so thank you.
> 
> PSA Time: please wear sunscreen, etc., don't smoke, get your spots and bits and boobs checked. You're all beautiful people and you all deserve to take care of yourselves. 
> 
> Also, if you are concerned about your relationship to alcohol, please reach out to someone. there are great resources and groups out there to help with this (even if your primary care practitioner will probably just give you a pneumonia vaccine and a schedule for local AA groups, so don't get discouraged if that happens). I should not be anyone's primary support resource on this (I am 100% a work in progress), but I am happy to share some resources that have helped me.
> 
> Come yell at me on social media: @heavyhenry2 on twitter and snarkonice on the tumblr.

Viktor makes a pot of tea. They sit on the couch and Yuuri tells him everything. He tells him about the bad years when he drank too much, miserable, trapped in a career he hated and a relationship that stifled him. He tells him about opening the bakery with Phichit and the day that Phichit said, “Hey dude, you should probably get someone to look at that.” 

He tells him about the morning before the reception, when he learned that the biopsy found abnormal cells in the sentinel node. He keeps apologizing, which is somehow even harder for Viktor to hear. He tells the whole story in a quiet voice, quirking the occasional smile. Sometimes he’s surprisingly blunt, like when he talks about how angry he was the night they met. Sometimes he cracks a joke that makes Viktor a little bit uncomfortable, especially when he talks about his relapse and the week between the reception and his surgery. “I was just...hopeless… you know?” Viktor nods. He can’t say anything. “I had worked so hard, _so fucking hard_ , and finally clawed my way into a life that I love. It just felt like the Universe said, ‘hey, congrats on learning to have feelings. aren’t you glad you got sober so you could just really enjoy this cancer?’ I couldn’t see any reason to keep fighting. I, uh, I drank a lot that week. Then I spent a day with the worst hangover ever, and then i showed up for surgery.” This all breaks Viktor’s heart, but he tries not to let it show. 

Viktor wants to ask a question, desperately wants to say something, to touch Yuuri, but he doesn’t know what might be the wrong thing. Yuuri saves him, fidgeting again with the hem of the tight black sleeve on his left arm. It’s a nervous habit he’s noticed a few times, but he’d never given the garment itself much thought. 

“Oh, right. It’s a compression sleeve.” He pushes up the sleeve of his button down and lets Viktor look at it, “Now that I don’t have lymph nodes on that side, I guess the fluid can’t move as well. I have to do this weird massage every night, too.” 

“Is it uncomfortable?” 

“I guess I’m used to it. It’s a little hot sometimes, and if I get dough or something on it, it’s a pain to get clean.” Yuuri looks over his shoulder at the clock on the stove. “Oh, god - I’d sorry. I didn’t realise it was so late. I should go.” 

“You don’t have to.” Viktor can hear the desperation in his own voice. Yuuri’s eyebrows climb his forehead. “Not like that. I just don’t want to say goodnight. My roommate is with his fiance tonight, so I could sleep on the couch. You could show me how you do the massage, and maybe we could talk some more.” 

Viktor isn’t sure if it’s disbelief or discomfort that he sees on Yuuri’s face. “This isn’t how I expected this to go.” 

Viktor doesn’t know what to say to that, “I’m sorry. I guess I’m not very good at this sort of thing.” 

Yuuri snorts, startling him, and takes Viktor’s hand. “I meant that you’ve been really great. Better than I deserve. I was expecting you to get awkward, maybe tell me a story about your aunt’s mastectomy, call me brave, then slowly stop coming to the bakery.” 

“Well, in my defense, I am feeling very awkward, and my second cousin did get top surgery a few years ago. I can tell you about it, if you want.” 

“Not right now, thanks.” Yuuri looks up from their hands, rubbing the pad of his thumb gently over Viktor’s knuckles where there’s a little bit of paint he didn’t quite manage to scrub off. “What do you want?” Yuuri’s eyes are warm and bright and Viktor should probably not fall in love this fast but it’s too late. It has been too late for a long time, now. 

“I want to kiss you. Is that okay?” 

“Yeah. I’d like that.” 

“And then, if you want, I’d like for you to stay with me.” 

 

 

One night, they’re sitting on the couch after a dinner of braised kale and white beans with the good chicken sausage from the co-op, full and content, watching an episode of Great British Bake-Off. Viktor asks and Yuuri hesitates. 

“Vitya, I don’t know. What if -” it’s always so hard to talk about these things, to put the worst into words. “It’s not going to be fun. Even best case scenario we’re talking treatment, immunotherapy, maybe chemo, maybe radiation again. I’m definitely not going to be fun sexy Yuuri for a while. Maybe we should wait until after…” Viktor knows that _if there is an after_ is the part he doesn’t say. 

“I don’t care. One of us could walk out of this apartment and get hit by a bus. Nothing is ever certain. No one has a guarantee. I just know I want to be with you for as long as I can. If you don’t want me to be your husband, I’ll be friend, lover, life coach, however you’ll have me.” 

“I just want you to be yourself. My Vitya.” 

“I want you to be my Yuuri.” 

 

 

They get married six months later. Maybe they’re rushing things a little bit, but no one seems to blame them. Phichit pulls in a favor from the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church they go to. Yuuri’s family drives up from Sacramento and they shut down the bakery for the day. 

Then they share two blissful honeymoon months of living together, and another two stressful months, constantly in each other’s way, sniping at small irritants and taking out bad moods on each other. But they get through it and they learn how to talk to each other like adults. VIktor asks Yuuri to teach him how to do the lymphatic massage. It becomes a strange ritual, pressure so light that it’s hard to believe you’re accomplishing anything, just a gentle brush of fingers over skin. Viktor tries to put all of his love and goodwill into his fingers, just in case it helps. He catches Yuuri watching him sometimes, an indulgent look on his face when Viktor finishes, like he always does, by kissing the tips of each of Yuuri’s fingers. 

Viktor learns what not to do when Yuuri has a panic attack. Offering to kiss him is Not Helpful. Listening, breathing, being with him are Helpful. They both learn that when Yuuri can’t stomach anything else a disgusting looking concoction of mashed up bananas and peanut butter on saltines will usually stay down, and that butter pecan Ensure is the nectar of the gods. Viktor doesn’t tell Yuuri this, but one night when Yuuri was watching movies with Phichit and Yurio, he invited Chris over and got sloppy drunk when Chris decided they could probably make a passable White Russian with the coffee flavor and vodka. He was wrong, but they drank them anyway and Chris held him while all the fears he tried to keep to himself when he was with Yuuri flooded out of him. 

For a while, things are good. Yuuri is approved to join a trial, one of the exciting new immunotherapies. He has to wait three months from the end of his last course of ipilimumab, and then he’ll receive a short course of high dose chemo, which no one is looking forward to, and then he will either begin the new treatment or receive a placebo. They decide to take advantage of the lull between treatments. Yuuri is feeling pretty well, and since Yurio graduated, he’s been taking more and more responsibilities at the bakery. No one wants to talk about how much Yuuri’s had to step back but the upshot is that Yurio is more than ready to take over. 

They take a trip to the lands of warmth and sunshine and fried foods: New Orleans, Miami, Savannah. They spend long languid days on beaches (slathered in sunscreen and swathed in gauzy coverups), walk under moss-covered oaks, eat their fill of fried seafoods, fresh fruit, strong coffees. They spend their nights wrapped around each other, clinging together in humid night air among the tropical symphony of bugs and frogs. 

When they return there’s a sense of purpose, of moving, of doing, a strange feeling of rushing toward a resolution which is both frightening and exhilarating. Everything feels charged and important, every moment outlined clear and special. 

When Yuuri has his first dose of chemo, he gets sick right away. The oncology center has big windows, and while Viktor holds the basin he glances out in time to see the sun break through the clouds and make rainbows in the little drops of water that slide down the windowpane. 

Viktor thinks about choices, about the roads in that yellow wood, and he knows that he would not change the choices he’s made, but sometimes he worries about Yuuri, who may not have as many choices left to make. Does he ever wish he’d taken a different road? 

 

 

He asks something like this much later, when the tumors come back anyway and spread to lungs, liver, when he has watched all the choices dwindle away. There’s a day when Yuuri seems more awake than he has been and they’re talking, spinning plans that they both know they’ll never get to see, at least not together. Viktor mentions that damn poem, and Yuuri frowns at him. His lips are a little chapped, so Viktor swabs down his hands with alcohol and smears a little vaseline on his lips for him. Yuuri takes his hand with a soft smile, and says, “Vitya, that’s not what that poem is about.” 

“What? It’s the Road Not Taken, by Frost. I saw Dead Poets Society, I know what that poem is about.” 

“Okay, so i wish i could time travel so i could Aikido your freshman english teacher in the face. And Robin Williams.” 

Viktor has had to sit through enough Steven Seagal movies with Yuuri and Phichit by now to know that’s not how Aikido works, but who is he to argue with morphine? “How does it go? ‘Two roads diverged…’” he’s trailing off, distracted, and viktor sees that tell-tale tightening around his eyes that says he’s starting to hurt, but it’s too early for more another dose. Viktor pulls it up one his phone. 

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth …” 

He reads aloud, and Yuuri nods along, with that little triumphant smirk he gets when he’s right about something. “See?” Viktor doesn’t say anything. “It’s not about rugged American individualism and the triumph of making a choice and being a beautiful unique snowflake. There’s no meaning in the guy’s choice. The roads are the same fucking thing and he makes his choice at random, then he justifies it after the fact. Frost was making fun of one of his friends, some other poet - dunno his name - cuz,” Yuuri pauses and tries to lick his lips, Viktor wants to stop him, he can tell he’s tiring himself out. But Yuuri is full of righteous indignation, and even after everything, it’s still adorable. 

The rant goes on, “this friend, see, cuz he couldn’t make a decision. He was, like, a chronic flip-flopper. We look back, we justify our choices, and we blame this choice or that one for the way our whole life turned out. Or we pat ourselves on the back and say it’s a good thing we didn’t follow all those other sheeple. We like to think that we’re in control and that our choices matter. You just live, the best you can, and you make the choices you can, and the would haves only matter if you let them.” Yuuri’s voice cracks a little and Viktor holds up the mug of Pedialyte with the purple curly straw. 

Viktor has his doubts about Yuuri’s interpretation, oh, sure, Yuuri’s probably technically correct, but that doesn’t mean he’s _right_ , but he just says, “well, I’m still really glad I bought a John Jacob Jingleheimer Cake.” 

“Yup, everything’s for the best in the best of all possible worlds.” 

“Uh, Yuuri, I’m not sure that Voltaire -” he starts, but Yuuri has closed his eyes and tipped his head back. Viktor has no idea how he manages to look smug, but he does. “You’re ridiculous.” Yuuri makes a humming sound, and squeezes Viktor’s hand. “I love you.” 

“I love you. I’ll let you rest.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter deals with Yuuri undergoing treatment for metastatic melanoma, and largely focuses on viktor's decision to continue the relationship anyway. It is implied that Yuuri is receiving end of life care, and the topic of Yuuri's eventual death is referenced, but there is no explicit death in this fic. details of treatment are relatively vague, but there may be the occasional detail that is familiar, so if that is likely to leave you feeling less than good, this chapter may be worth avoiding.


End file.
